Playing Pandemic is deeply satisfying in quarantine

The best thing most of us can do to fight the global pandemic is nothing: stay home, stay safe, public health officials implore.

There's one place where that's not the case. In the board game Pandemic, players work as a team to fight the spread of disease across the globe. As a quarantine activity, knocking off "disease cubes," playing the necessary cards for a cure, and getting to "eradication," is deeply satisfying. It simulates some sense of power and control in a fictional version of our own reality. And thanks to a digital adaptation, you can play the cooperative game with friends from a distance.

The game has been popular during the coronavirus pandemic, according to its original designer, Matthew Leacock. Google Trends data shows that searches for "Pandemic board game" reached an all-time high in March 2020. It has all been a bit overwhelming for Leacock, especially considering his personal circumstances: Leacock's wife came down with coronavirus in February.

"Personally, this has all been very strange for me," Leacock told Mashable over email. "When I first started designing the game in 2004, in my mind pandemics were things that theoretically could happen, somewhere, sometime. But it’s now all very real: Our family was affected in February when my wife came down with it. She’s recovered now, but it very quickly brought the reality of the situation into sharp focus."

Here's how Pandemic works: The board is a map of the world, with cities from Riyadh to Buenos Aires to Atlanta (the CDC headquarters) connected by a web around the globe. As you turn over "city cards," those cities get "infected," which you signify with disease cubes. If a city gets four disease cubes, it causes an outbreak to every other city it touches. The aim of the game is to cure all four diseases (red, blue, yellow, and black) by collecting cards of that color, before a certain amount of outbreaks. It's a rare board game where your opponent is the game, not the players. Playing involves strategic coordination to move yourself around the globe, build "research stations," collect and share cards with other players, and cure and eradicate diseases. It's complicated, but fun, if you're into that sort of thing.

In the past, friends and I played the game from time to time, but we thought nothing of it. That changed when news of coronavirus started breaking through in early 2020.

I first played Pandemic the board game in the time of coronavirus at the very beginning. Before mandatory social distancing and stay-at-home orders were in place, but while coronavirus was percolating in Italy, in Tom Hanks' lungs, in the NBA. It felt like a cheeky thing to do. My fiancé, sisters-in-law, and I sat on the floor around the coffee table in the living room, and we tittered at the irony, greeting the unknown of a pandemic with mocking jest. We didn't know yet that that was the last time we'd be able to see each other for weeks, and weeks, and weeks.

We didn't bust it out again, mostly because, well, we didn't have people to play with. Besides, the seriousness of the situation made the idea of playing a game version of a pandemic less appealing.

Now, nearly two months into social distancing and with reopening plans in the works, that feeling has softened. Some friends discovered that there is an online version of the game, available on Steam, that works really well. One person has to buy it, but then you can invite remote friends to play once you start a game. My friends and I each used one computer for game play, and another computer for a video call, so we could play "together." (You could also get the same effect if you have multiple monitors or just listen to each other via Discord voice chat on your phone or in another tab while playing on your computer.)

I was surprised at how it felt...satisfying. Removing disease cubes in Milan was empowering. When we were able to gather enough cards to cure the "yellow" disease, a "DISEASE CURED" image popped up on the screen with a giant checkmark. It felt good, almost like doing something. There was also some sadness: If only "curing" a disease were as easy as working together to collect cards. But the bittersweetness of success was more of a victorious rush than it was depressing.

Leacock gets how playing the board game in the time of an actual pandemic can be a bit of an emotional double edged sword. However, he hopes that people who do choose to play his game while social distancing can find some encouraging lessons within it.

"I totally get that some people would rather avoid the title — we’re inundated with news about the pandemic after all — but I’ve also been encouraged to hear that it’s given some people a way to talk about what’s going on, or have even used it as a way to fight back against the disease (if only in the game)," Leacock said. "I also think the theme it promotes — that we all need to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate together to overcome a worldwide threat — is appropriate at a time like this."

Pandemic is obviously just a game. At the very least, playing the virtual version will give you something fun and challenging to do with your friends. But maybe, as you remove those cubes, build research stations, and find a cure, you too might feel something more.

You can find Pandemic on Steam here, which you can buy for $9.99. You can order the physical game here.

UPDATE: May 6, 2020, 5:53 p.m. EDT Pandemic creator Matt Leacock has released rules and a guide for how to play a tournament style game of Pandemic over Zoom. More remote world saving fun, hooray!